Advertisement
Published: April 26th 2012
Edit Blog Post
It’s time to head back to the U.S. We pack our bags and prepare for the long journey to the other side of the planet. Chinese Grandfather is exhausted from the baby party celebrating so “Uncle Has-A-Car” drives us to the airport. At the check in, our momentum is halted just as when we were flying China East last time. Our tickets are “closed” and need to be “opened”. We still don’t know what this means and a series of phone calls ensue. Different from the previous incident, this time it’s both of our tickets, not just mine. Other customers are passing us by as we wait and wait for the issue to be resolved. It feels like a lifetime of delay as we are surrounded in a chaos of Chinese language (the uncle was adamant that he was to help solve the problem). At last our tickets are “opened” so checking-in and boarding can commence.
We land our bodies into the seats and the flight takes off. Similar to flying China East previously, there is no mind paid to if passengers are seated or if the luggage is stowed properly under the seats or in the overhead compartments. Seasoned
Beijing Airport
The longest cab line ever. travels know there is no fiddling around in the aisle. The flight is going to leave whether you are ready or not.
Our first flight from Luoyang to Beijing has a very long layover. A hotel is booked near the Beijing airport for us. The hotel has an airport shuttle available during the day. Unfortunately our flight gets in at 1:00AM and it’s too late to take advantage of the service. Feeling properly prepared with a Chinese translation of the hotel’s name and address, we come upon the longest, longest, LONGEST taxi line ever seen. Some rogue cabs approach us outside the taxi line and offer us service for 3-5 times the cost we were told the fare would be. We decline and proceed to wait in the proper taxi queue. 97 minutes pass and we are finally at the front of the line. Thinking this ordeal is finally over, we confidently approach the available cab. Showing him the address, the cabby shakes his head and waves on the next customer in taxi line. This same event happens to us 3 more times. The excuses are either the hotel is not far enough away or they don’t know the
location of the hotel. The 5th cab pulls up and I sling my luggage into it quickly before showing the destination. The cabby says the luggage won’t fit and I quickly prove him wrong. We are finally moving down the road and the cabby admits he doesn’t know where the hotel is located even though I have the exact street address in Chinese right in front of his nose. He drives around and makes several calls on his cell. Eventually we stop at a place that is obviously not the hotel and another cab pulls up. It is now after 3:00AM and exhaustion is setting in. We exit the car and move our luggage. This new cab has a passenger that speaks English. He tells us they know where the hotel is. Standing in an alley somewhere in Beijing in the middle of the night, the English-speaking passenger tells us that the fare is going to be 3 times what we were expecting. Most folks would have probably handed their entire wallet over to get the heck of this situation. But Ol’ Iron Pockets has to negotiate. The English-speaking passenger chuckles as I offer half of his price. The new
cabby agrees and we drive less than two minutes before we see the welcoming site of our hotel.
The front desk attendant is cheerful and speaks decent English. We explain the terrible time we had getting to their hotel that is 1.6 miles from the airport. She tells us that none of the cabs want to take fares to their hotel because it’s not far enough away from the airport. The most wonderful piece of information we get is our check out time. Since this is a layover hotel, they are used to people requesting to sleep until their flight departs. We secure a check out time of 3:00PM. With good intentions, we had booked a hotel with a pool, spa, and other prime amenities. Did we use them? Nope. Sleeping and eating were our only priorities.
The hotel was well maintained and clean. I sleep most of the day while Julie goes to get food for us. We are excited about the heating in the room, the hot water and the clean shower. Eventually the time comes for us to depart from our oasis. The shuttle bus carries us to the international terminal. With plenty of time
before the scheduled boarding, we explore the airport around our gate. Figuring on arriving at the gate a ½ hour before departure, we actually arrive at the gate 25 minutes prior to take off. The attendants are hurried and anxious. They tell us that we are the last passengers and that they have been waiting for us. Unlike in the states if everyone is boarded, this airline wants to take off EARLY. We hurry to our seats that have already been occupied. The overhead compartments are full. A flight attendant starts waiving at us to follow and he takes us to the Economy Plus section. Wow what a difference. Only about 40% of the seats are occupied versus the cattle car in the back. We stretch out in our own row with wider seats. This is how air travel should be.
The flight was uneventful. A series of wakefulness, sleep and eating repeated over the hours. As we approach our destination, I start to feel anxious and excited. It’s has been 14 days since I’ve seen my family which is the longest I’ve ever been away. It was a fantastic trip and I am looking forward to doing it
again. Thank you to Chris for the great accommodations and thank you to Julie for being a great travel companion and my good friend.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0302s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb